MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A criminal case has been launched into the 2014-2015 abductions by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies of Russian citizens in southeastern Ukraine, the Russian Investigative Committee said Monday.
"A criminal case was opened on the basis of the crimes specified by Article 126 of the Russian Criminal Case (abduction)," Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.
The case covers a December 2014 abduction of a 36-year-old Russian volunteer who was freed two years later and an April 2015 abduction of a group of volunteers involved in providing assistance to Donbass refugees, Petrenko said.
In February 2015, Kiev forces and Donbass independence supporters signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Despite the agreement brokered by the Normandy Four states (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine), the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.
